PORTLAND2014 BIENNIAL

Disjecta Contemporary Art Center

Till April 27, 2014

Artists: Zachary Davis / Modou Dieng & Devon A. VanHouten-Maldonado / Alex Mackin Dolan / Travis Fitzgerald / Jessica Jackson Hutchins / Evan La Londe / Ellen Lesperance / D.E. May / Christopher Michlig & John Zerzan / Personal Libraries Library / Publication Studio / Ralph Pugay / Kelly Rauer / Blair Saxon-Hill / Richard Thompson

Curated by: Amanda Hunt

The Portland2014 Biennial, organized by Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, opened on March 8 in Portland, Oregon. This biennial departs from the previous two editions by naming a non-regional curator, Los Angeles-based Amanda Hunt, to lead the project. Portland2014 features new and commissioned works by fifteen artists whose compelling practices are shaping the contemporary arts landscape of the region. Utilizing four distinct venues throughout the city, the Portland2014 Biennial connects artistic production—much of which is collaborative—and uncovers an intergenerational dialogue between practitioners, running a quiet thread between them. The exhibition will feature several public components, namely a series of artist's billboards and public sculptures staged in select locations. These fifteen Oregon-based artists and collaboratives are working in associative ways and across a range of media to create site-specific installations and public programs that situate a regional dialogue in broad terms.

Public projects

Kiosk Kiosk Kiosk

A synthesis of the critical voice of anarchist author John Zerzan and artist Christopher Michlig's interest in engaging public space and language itself, three kiosk cubes will be staged at public sites across Portland, standing as catalysts for latent possibility. The kiosks' exteriors will integrate excerpts from Zerzan's writing; free pamphlets featuring his full text will be distributed at each kiosk. Sites will be announced on the biennial website.

Artists: Christopher Michlig & John Zerzan

Portland2014 Public Billboards

Portland2014 will feature three public billboards that will be sited across Portland, each addressing a theme of landscape. Sites will be announced on the biennial website.

Artists: Modou Dieng & Devon VanHoulten-Maldonado, Ralph Pugay and Richard Thompson.

The Saturday Series

Alternating venues, Portland2014 will host a series of conversations, performances, screenings and workshops each Saturday during the run of the biennial, at various sites across the city:

March 15
"Monumental Gestures in the Public Sphere," a conversation between Ralph Pugay, Christopher Michlig and John Zerzan, moderated by Harrell Fletcher. (Portland State University, Shattuck Hall Annex Lecture Hall, 1914 SW Park Avenue)

March 22

Networks, a video program curated by former Appendix Space members (Gray Box @White Box Gallery, 24 NW 1st Avenue)

March 29 

As part of the Portland2014 Press & VIP Weekend, Mary Beebe, Director of The Stuart Collection at the University of San Diego, California, and former director of The Portland Center for the Visual Arts (1973–1981), and Anne Ellegood, Senior Curator at Los Angeles' Hammer Museum, will be in conversation with Portland2014 Curator Amanda Hunt to consider Portland's creative past/present/future. (Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Avenue; 4pm)

April 5

Personal Libraries Library founder Abra Ancliffe will host a double film feature and discussion on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the Library. (The Best Art Gallery in Portland, 1468 NE Alberta Street)

April 12

Co-directors of Publication Studio Antonia Pinter and Patricia No conduct a roundtable discussion on authorship. (Publication Studio, 717 SW Ankeny Street)

April 19

Ellen Lesperance will host the next Wikipedia Feminist Art Edit-a-thon session. (Pacific Northwest College of Art Fine Art Library, 1241 NW Johnson Street)

April 26

Kelly Rauer will close the series by presenting an improvisation in movement with fellow dancers, an experiment to activate her installation. (Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Avenue)

Check biennial.disjecta.org for updates or more details.Portland2014 Curator Amanda Hunt is based in Los Angeles, where she is a Curator at LA><ART. She has worked at various galleries and institutions including Whitechapel Gallery, London; Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York; the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Hunt worked on two major arts initiatives in Los Angeles in 2012, including the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival, co-produced by LA><ART and the Getty Research Institute, and Made in L.A. 2012, the first Los Angeles biennial organized by the Hammer Museum in collaboration with LA><ART. Hunt is a graduate of the Curatorial Practice program at California College of the Arts, San Francisco.

Financial support for Portland2014 has been generously provided by The Ford Family Foundation, Oregon Cultural Trust, The Kinsman Foundation, Oregon Arts Commission, The Robert Lehman Foundation, Regional Arts & Culture Council, and Travel Portland.

Founded in 2000, Disjecta Contemporary Art Center builds ambitious programs that promote artists and engage communities. These dynamic programs showcase new work and fuel collaborations between artists, curators and viewers that impact and intervene in the larger contemporary arts dialogue. Disjecta exacts equal rigor from local and national artists, while keenly recognizing and supporting the talent of the region.

The Portland Biennial is a major survey of art that recognizes artists working to define and advance contemporary practices across Oregon. Portland2014 continues the tradition of the Oregon Biennial, begun by the Portland Art Museum in 1949. With the end of PAM's Biennial in 2006, Oregon artists lost a longstanding platform for career advancement. Disjecta reintroduced the Biennial in 2010, curated by Linfield College Gallery Director Cris Moss. The exhibition spanned nine venues throughout Portland and included 19 Oregon artists. Portland2012 presented the work of 24 artists at five venues and was curated by Prudence F. Roberts, former curator of American Art at the Portland Art Museum.

Disjecta Contemporary Art Center

8371 N Interstate Avenue
Portland, OR 97217

www.disjecta.org

Image Credits:
(1) Heel on the Flower of a Seed, 2013; Blair Saxon-Hill; photogravure collage on book page (8 3/4 x 12 inches)
(2) John Zerzan & Christopher Michlig, "Kiosk Kiosk Kiosk," 2014. Study model.